Real Passing Yards per Attempt

Final Statistics for the 2013 Season

About Real Passing Yards Per Attempt. The Cold, Hard Football Facts use passing yards per attempt as a way to measure the effectiveness of each quarterback at getting the ball downfield. Longtime CHFF readers know that a quarterback’s average per attempt has an incredibly high correlation to success, often close to 80 percent in a given season.

Real Passing Yards Per Attempt is a little more advanced and a team-wide indicator. It doesn’t just reward a quarterback for throwing the football. Instead, as a team indicator, it also includes the impact of sacks. We use only NET passing figures to determine yards per attempt. This is gross passing yards, minus yards lost via sacks. But we also divide it by total dropbacks – that is, not just pass attempts, but sacks as well. This formula yields a team’s TRUE average per pass attempt, its Real Passing Yards Per Attempt.